South Park, bless their satyric hearts, gave us a cutting and spot on, if not quite accurate, episode about the dangers of not reading legal agreements you electronically sign for things like Gmail, or in this case -- iTunes.
In the episode our plucky heroes all want to download the latest update of iTunes. And why not, the design is sleeker, somehow. Possibly there are more options of how to configure your hard purchased songs and whatnot. I know I like to update iTunes.*
When we update, we click the "agree" box and I am yet to find one nerd who has read all they agree to. South Park posits that everyone does, and your a total dummy for not doing so -- which is just to point out how dumb we all are, because we all just click Agree, and all just assume that others have read it and no harm has come to them...
Then harm comes to one of our heroes.
I won't go into details, but rest assured, it's horrible.
The point here is not about South Park, nor iTunes, but rather the sleeping giant.
Google.
For long ages past, a small altar has been erected in the heart of Kiddo, in honor of the geeks who run Google. They are geeks and they rule the world by giving people exactly what they want exactly when they demand it. The only thing they enforce through law, is their little Agree button which decrees:
When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.
The favorite part is their conversational tone which speaks to our fairly-well-educated generation without any condescension or cluttering legalese.
The worst part is how they claim everything you squirrel away digitally -- and not just for their use but also for "those we work with".
Why is this so frightening? Because Kiddo says many things she considers original, witty, intelligent -- marketable -- on this here blogspot. And, since they great loss of digital files 2012, has started putting all the little acorns of poetry, screenplays, essays, diary entries, and collected quotes into the digital knot-hole of gmail.
How they exercise this policy of ownership I must find out. Is it simply for serachability issues? Is it for a hostile takeover of the universe? Have there been lawsuits yet? Where is cyber law defining what belongs to you and what belongs to the creator? Who owns what? Even white collar jail does not work well with Kiddo's pixie dreamgirl status.
No conclusion today. No learning moment. Just fear.
*Version 10.0, however, fell from the tree Jobs had spent his life nurturing, just like everything else that's bloomed since his death. All the tool bars can dissapear now, so you're left with just the pretty pretty album covers, but those album covers are stuck in whatever size the window configures, and the background is stuck in a glaring white.
In the episode our plucky heroes all want to download the latest update of iTunes. And why not, the design is sleeker, somehow. Possibly there are more options of how to configure your hard purchased songs and whatnot. I know I like to update iTunes.*
When we update, we click the "agree" box and I am yet to find one nerd who has read all they agree to. South Park posits that everyone does, and your a total dummy for not doing so -- which is just to point out how dumb we all are, because we all just click Agree, and all just assume that others have read it and no harm has come to them...
Then harm comes to one of our heroes.
I won't go into details, but rest assured, it's horrible.
The point here is not about South Park, nor iTunes, but rather the sleeping giant.
Google.
For long ages past, a small altar has been erected in the heart of Kiddo, in honor of the geeks who run Google. They are geeks and they rule the world by giving people exactly what they want exactly when they demand it. The only thing they enforce through law, is their little Agree button which decrees:
When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.
The favorite part is their conversational tone which speaks to our fairly-well-educated generation without any condescension or cluttering legalese.
The worst part is how they claim everything you squirrel away digitally -- and not just for their use but also for "those we work with".
Why is this so frightening? Because Kiddo says many things she considers original, witty, intelligent -- marketable -- on this here blogspot. And, since they great loss of digital files 2012, has started putting all the little acorns of poetry, screenplays, essays, diary entries, and collected quotes into the digital knot-hole of gmail.
How they exercise this policy of ownership I must find out. Is it simply for serachability issues? Is it for a hostile takeover of the universe? Have there been lawsuits yet? Where is cyber law defining what belongs to you and what belongs to the creator? Who owns what? Even white collar jail does not work well with Kiddo's pixie dreamgirl status.
No conclusion today. No learning moment. Just fear.
*Version 10.0, however, fell from the tree Jobs had spent his life nurturing, just like everything else that's bloomed since his death. All the tool bars can dissapear now, so you're left with just the pretty pretty album covers, but those album covers are stuck in whatever size the window configures, and the background is stuck in a glaring white.
